Eating and Waiting to Eat - an Edinburgh foodie podcast born in a bakery queue

Kevin Rivers (left) and Carlos Miranda met while queuing at Lannan Bakery

A lot can happen while you're queuing for cardamom buns at Lannan. In that eternity, one can make a friend and decide to launch an Edinburgh food podcast.  

That’s exactly how Kevin Rivers and I met. Due to a shared love of food, and a slew of other common circumstances, chief among them our ‘Americans living in Edinburgh’ status, we quickly became a two man supper club. After that fateful morning at Lannan, we regularly shared espressos, katzu curries, and martinis. When we weren’t eating together, we were just waiting to eat.  

During one particularly wine-fuelled dinner, we joked about starting a podcast as an excuse to get to know the folks behind the Edinburgh restaurants, bars, and coffee shops we loved. That joke escalated into a brainstorm. What if we actually did it?

Kevin and Carlos interview the people behind the eateries.

A few months, some research (i.e. googling), some market testing (i.e. asking friends), and many espressos later, Eating and Waiting to Eat was baked.

The final show is remarkably similar to our original intention: we chat with the chefs and restaurateurs that make our adoptive home world-class for food and drink. We also highlight the realities of operating a restaurant. We want to salute the hospitality industry, while also acknowledging the headwinds it’s currently facing.   

Every place spotlighted on the podcast - Mirin, Sabzi, Hey Palu, Mootz, The Palmerston, etc - are places we geek out about. We wanted listeners to know how a chef like Sharif, from Mirin, learned to cook largely from trial, error, and YouTube and how Chris and Andy from Mootz settled on, and make fresh, the schiacciata bread that is their restaurant’s signature. The inherent communal nature of food is important to us and we want the podcast to be a means to enhance the dining experience in Edinburgh, while also building a fellowship of fellow food lovers.   

The podcast’s reception has been humbling; as is the fact that more people than our wives are tuning in. We have big ambitions for the show, there’s a long list of chefs we want to interview, and for an upcoming supper club (naturally at the restaurants the podcast features). The food scene in this city of ours is special and it deserves to be celebrated. Slainte.

Some of the venues featured in Season One